Going back the creation v evolution discussion - at the risk of sounding arrogant and unpleasant (something I seems to be quite good at) - are there people in 2006 who genuinely believe in creationalism (ie that evolution is a load of crap)?.

While conclusive proof of evolution is difficult (or maybe impossible - because of incomplete fossil records) it's much more probable than creationalism (there is not one single FACT or peice of EVIDENCE to support creationalism).

Richard Dawkins has written quite a bit about this sort of stuff. He refers to sceptics - who are people that can accept that we don't understand everything (\"science\"), rather than believing some made up half truth (\"religion\").

I am genuinely keen to have a chat with a creationalist over a couple of beers or while out climbing. Who's keen? (I live in Cape Town).

Guy wrote:Going back the creation v evolution discussion - at the risk of sounding arrogant and unpleasant (something I seems to be quite good at) - are there people in 2006 who genuinely believe in creationalism (ie that evolution is a load of crap)?.

Richard Dawkins has written quite a bit about this sort of stuff. He refers to sceptics - who are people that can accept that we don't understand everything ("science"), rather than believing some made up half truth ("religion").

I am genuinely keen to have a chat with a creationalist over a couple of beers or while out climbing. Who's keen? (I live in Cape Town).

Fact is, there are people out there who don't believe in evolution, in these 'enlightened' times. I remember meeting one at varsity (only about 6 years ago). It's called faith - what Dawkins terms a 'virus of the mind', or a meme, an idea of experience spread culturally (read Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson for an interesting discussion of memes - he expands the idea of memes to be an actual religious 'mind virus').

I don't get blind faith in creationism, but then again, creationists probably don't understand our blind faith in evolution.

Re: chatting with a creationist - Steven Jay Gould said that by engaging them, you give them what they crave, recognition,and that by giving them recognition, you give credence to their theories. From personal experience, it's a bit like arguing with a crazy person while your shoes are on fire.

My kids (or perhaps one of their friends ... can't recall exactly at this point in time) came up with a classic the other day. Their take on religion is that \"God is the Fairy God Mother for grown ups\" !

The problem I have is that society in general (who don’t read or debate and are easily influenced) have been misled and convinced that only “intelligent and enlightened” people believe in science , while only “stupid” people believe in religion, and no-one wants to be stupid right? Churches don’t run major media networks, or it could’ve been the other way around.. Science has been so vehemently defended against religion that it has itself evolved into a form of organized religion anyway, so it’s much of a muchness really.

Has anyone ever thought about the space between Creation vs. Evolution? What about another option?

Sir Isaac Newton discovered and formulated amongst other things the 3 Laws of Newton, without which much of our current understanding of our world and our universe would be impossible. He was also a deeply religious man, though this little fact is conveniently always left out. So does his discoveries disprove the existence of an Intelligent Creator?. Absolutely not. Just as much as understanding the blueprints of a car disprove the existence of the engineer who designed it.

Because understanding how that car works might enable you to build a bigger engine and body, and now you have a truck and you can transport food and building materials. You have gained some powerful tools that can help your species as a whole, evolution in a sense. Does this disprove the existence of the engineer who gave you the blueprints yet? Can evolution not be a process set in motion by a Creator?

According to Richard Dawkins, amongst other evolutionists, you are god! Or at least will be, within five generations of progressive cumulative evolution.

Check it out:

Assume we leave your first letter G, as an unchanging (for example's sake) constantant gene... then take U, your vowel gene and put it through single step progressive evolution, and at the same time take Y, your second constanant gene, and also put it through single step progressive evolution....... look what happens:

The Jimmy wrote:The problem I have is that society in general (who don’t read or debate and are easily influenced) have been misled and convinced that only “intelligent and enlightened” people believe in science , while only “stupid” people believe in religion, and no-one wants to be stupid right? Churches don’t run major media networks, or it could’ve been the other way around.. Science has been so vehemently defended against religion that it has itself evolved into a form of organized religion anyway, so it’s much of a muchness really.

Has anyone ever thought about the space between Creation vs. Evolution? What about another option?

Sir Isaac Newton discovered and formulated amongst other things the 3 Laws of Newton, without which much of our current understanding of our world and our universe would be impossible. He was also a deeply religious man, though this little fact is conveniently always left out. So does his discoveries disprove the existence of an Intelligent Creator?. Absolutely not. Just as much as understanding the blueprints of a car disprove the existence of the engineer who designed it.

Because understanding how that car works might enable you to build a bigger engine and body, and now you have a truck and you can transport food and building materials. You have gained some powerful tools that can help your species as a whole, evolution in a sense. Does this disprove the existence of the engineer who gave you the blueprints yet? Can evolution not be a process set in motion by a Creator?

Think about it.

Ummm, but churches do run media networks. And they do control a massive amount of financial resources, substantially more than scientists anyway. Don't believe, for a second, that the church doesn't wield a tremendous amount of influence in the world, or that they are some kind or 'poor cousin' to the rich world of science.

And I'm not saying that religious people are stupid. Gullible, maybe, but no blanketly stupid. That said, if I asked you to believe in something fantastic and illogical that went against what you knew and experienced, and offered no proof, would you? Well, it sounds like you do. Do you reply to spam?

You say that science has been vehemently defended against religion - and religion has not been vehemently defended against science? The church seemed to do their absolute best in the middle ages to rid the world of science and scientists who didn't conform to the Christian views of the world.

Isaac Newton was a polyglot and one of the greatest scientist. Yes, he was also a Christian. He was also an alchemist. And a philosopher. And an economist. These things are not mutually exclusive. Everyone has their blindspots :-) But Newton did try to scientifically explain everything in the universe he could, leaving Christianity out of it, bar the point that he viewed our specific universe as specifically ordained. And he believed that it could all be explained by science.

As I've said before, I choose to believe in science, as I believe that it explains enough of the world in a logical way. I choose to see it as the truth. You are welcome to disagree. It doesn't make you stupid, or me intelligent. But I also believe that more evil has been done in the name of religion than in science and for that, I believe religions, and people who blindly follow them, should be condemned.

Dom I can probably argue about every single sentence you wrote, which a lot of it seems is hearsay. Then you'll do the same with me. Then we'll be arguing the same tired points that thousands of people have argued before us, and still will after us. There's no point. If either \"side\" could have proven more right than the other up to this point of history, no-one would be having these debates anymore anyway, cause we'd know.

Believe what you believe and respect (which is not the same as \"like\", something South Africans in general can apply better) other views.

Wow, seems like a popular topic.
I think what I was getting at before is what evolutionists consider to be fact, Guy, to explain their theories and years later they discover that they were wrong and then the next piece of 'fact' is correct. Religion is constant, it never changes (maybe the people who follow it), yet Evolution, etc. is constantly changing and still people religiously follow without question.
For those who think religion is for idiots, I'm sure Einstein would have something to say about that as he believed in a creator.
This is turning into a typical creation vs evolution discussion and could go on ad infinitum, so next time I see one of you suckers I'll give you my theory on 'The Construct We Call Our Universe'. Based on the latest cosmology theories its so simple but if true, proves without question a higher power. Bottom line: if the chaos within the universe has an underlying order allowing it to function that would require an architect.

The Jimmy - you're right, this debate is endless. But that's what makes it interesting ... we're participating real-time in Memetics, a form of evolution.

Stu - nobody is saying that religion is for idiots. I thought Dom was pretty clear in getting that message across. However, I disagree with your claim that religion never changes. The subject of Memes and Memetics which Dom raised is fascinating, and has a good point on the evolution of religion. To quote from Wikipedia:

\"Many of the world's most successful religions demonstrate memetic modification over time — the theologies of the 21st century differ to a greater or lesser extent from the theologies of previous centuries. Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism and Islam (and their descendants) have all developed through variation, modification and memetic recombination from a shared monotheistic meme\"

With the introduction of science it was thought and hoped that religion and God could finally be disproved and done away with. At this stage it has in fact done the opposite. It is also my 'belief' that in time as science itself improves it will in the end prove a grand design to the universe, ie. mathematics was not invented by humans but discovered.
It seems there is a lot of infomation out there that doesn't hit the mainstream. The big mistake people make about Christians (I can't speak for other religions) is that they think we carry a bible under our arms 24 hours and only quote from that when challenged. This might have been true 30 years ago but there are more and more scientists and mathematicians that are religious.
Ok I get Doms point that we are not idiots but you guys certainly preach Evolution from a high pedestal to us common folk, reread the thread. Virus of the mind, I don't think so. The one thing I have found is that an open mind is essential to avoiding stagnation in life.

Hey Stu ... I don't you think you should interpret \"virus\" as a negative connotation or a criticism. The statement is merely claiming that the memetic modification of human beliefs over time is similar to the spread of a virus - therefore, the \"virus of the mind\".

Certainly hope I don't come across as a preacher of any particular philosophy, religion or science - I am a devout \"fence-sitter & observer\" with an open-mind waiting for the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. Odds are I won't see much happen in my lifetime!

Stu wrote:With the introduction of science it was thought and hoped that religion and God could finally be disproved and done away with. At this stage it has in fact done the opposite. It is also my 'belief' that in time as science itself improves it will in the end prove a grand design to the universe, ie. mathematics was not invented by humans but discovered.

The introduction of science? An acceptance of scientific theory (including mathematics) is not mutually exclusive to an acceptance of religion - science and religion are not necessarily two antagonistic entities (although I do agree that they do often disagree especially when it comes to evolutionary/creationist arguments). Scientific exploration has existed for as long as religion, and many scientific theories are older than Christianity.

However, pre-Christianity, science and religion coexisted entirely congenially in, for example, the Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures (who were arguably the greatest races of scientists in history). Pythagoras even started his own religion (the first tenet of said religion was to abstain from beans), and Aristotle (as interpreted by Bertrand Russel) said that the world is continually evolving towards a greater degree of form, and thus becoming progressively more like God.

And those two laid some of the cornerstones of the practices considered most atheistic: science and philosophy.

Stu wrote:if the chaos within the universe has an underlying order allowing it to function that would require an architect.

That said, evolution is based on chaos - on the chaotic alignment of genes and DNA to evolve to overcome negative environmental factors - hence the reason that some organisms become extinct and some thrive. However, all organisms will become extinct as others evolve to be fitter - hence the survival of the fittest. It could be argued that there is a 'director' or God. And that all boils down to the age-old philosophical question posed by Epicurus:

Epicurus wrote:
"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?"

This question could be asked about evolution, which is an incredibly messy, slow process - why did evolution have to happen? Why couldn't the 'director' have just put us here?

Anyway, I don't know these answers, and I'm supposed to be working on my thesis, but this is much more interesting.

I would also like to add, for whatever reason, that I have no problem, specifically, with religious people, only the intolerant and ignorant, whether they are religious or not. Bear in mind that the internet is an asynchronous medium of communication that doesn't allow argument in the traditional sense, so it is much easier to appear intolerant and ignorant (I'm sure there are enough people who think I am both - I don't really care, as I am better than them).

Yeah sure science has been around a while, but I'm refering to modern science. There is a difference.
In refering to chaos I was looking at the universe as a whole, from the birth and collapse of a star to the birth of a child. The chaos that is our universe. Creationism believes that universe was not created through a series of random events and circumstances, but rather through a hidden order or according to some mighty plan.
Not sure if this is what you are refering to, but 'evil in this world' is permitted for the same reason I can tie my shoelace or rob a bank, because I want to. Free will, life would suck without it.

Stu wrote:Yeah sure science has been around a while, but I'm refering to modern science. There is a difference.

Why is there a difference? Because there is a supposed adversarial relationship between science and religion now? Because in the last 600-odd years science has held up "facts" proffered by the church as truth and called them false (i.e. the structure of the universe, evolution etc), and has thus become the province of heretics? That's precisely the same kind of thing that happened with the Church of England, albeit over divorce, rather than scientific theory.

Stu wrote:
Creationism believes that universe was not created through a series of random events and circumstances, but rather through a hidden order or according to some mighty plan.

As far as I know, creationism is the belief that God created the earth, finish and klaar and if you don't like it you can burn in hell.. Directed evolution seems like some kind of apologist strategy by creationists who have started to believe the "this evolution thing" may have some measure of truth.

Stu wrote:
Not sure if this is what you are refering to, but 'evil in this world' is permitted for the same reason I can tie my shoelace or rob a bank, because I want to. Free will, life would suck without it.

I was trying to approach the point that evolution is precisely another 'evil in the world' argument, but one that can't be explained away by free will. Unless, of course, cells have the free will to mutate, in which case, evolution would be deity-independant. And that would mean that God is not omnipotent, omniscient etc, and heads would explode.

flop wrote:If Evolution is true, what conclusively differentiates between right and wrong? Think about this statement carefully before blowing it off.....

Evolution is a theory that was thrown out years ago, evolutionists just don't have anything else to believe in so they cling blindly to every bit of "new" evidence that comes to light.

Think about it? Think about this: you are a moron. Survival of the fittest (which I'm assuming you're referring to, as opposed to evolution) is a biological issue - differentiating between right and wrong is a moral issue. Morals are shared norms. They're also flexible and evolutionary. But they
are artificial constructs, as opposed to scientific theories.

And which evolutionary theory was "thrown out years ago"? Darwinian? Mendelian? It's strange, as no-one seems to have told my girlfriend (who's studying evolutionary biology) or the Zoology departments at universities throughout the world. Maybe you know something they don't? Or maybe you're just making stuff up.

I think that supposed 'adversarial relationship' is a perception out there and that is the point I'm making. Assumption is the mother of all... and that is what Christians have done for quite some time. The Structure of the Universe has changed but while this proved Christians of old wrong in their assumptions it doesn't oppose the existence of God!
Come on Dom, the Christian belief is not that only Earth was created but the entire universe. \"Let there be light\": somehow I don't think that refers to Eskom, it sounds a little more widespread than that. I think you will find that \"directed evolution\" is held true by a minority of christians, and even so Evolution is still unproved and I would not limit myself to finding evidence (for or against) in our creation only.
There are a lot of things happening all the time that are \"deity-independant\", this does not mean that God is not omnipotent. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason. A plane crash, a bus crash with school kids - is it all ordained by God or simply the result of the laws of the world we live in: a drunk bus driver or faulty wiring.
Anyway, I think all you really need to come around is a good ol bashing over the head with my super-thick bible - I have a special storage compartment for it in my pad

Stu wrote:I think that supposed 'adversarial relationship' is a perception out there and that is the point I'm making. Assumption is the mother of all... and that is what Christians have done for quite some time. The Structure of the Universe has changed but while this proved Christians of old wrong in their assumptions it doesn't oppose the existence of God!
Come on Dom, the Christian belief is not that only Earth was created but the entire universe. "Let there be light": somehow I don't think that refers to Eskom, it sounds a little more widespread than that. I think you will find that "directed evolution" is held true by a minority of christians, and even so Evolution is still unproved and I would not limit myself to finding evidence (for or against) in our creation only.
There are a lot of things happening all the time that are "deity-independant", this does not mean that God is not omnipotent. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason. A plane crash, a bus crash with school kids - is it all ordained by God or simply the result of the laws of the world we live in: a drunk bus driver or faulty wiring.
Anyway, I think all you really need to come around is a good ol bashing over the head with my super-thick bible - I have a special storage compartment for it in my pad

Haha, nice one. Gives a new meaning to 'bible-bashing'.. (I doubt your plan would work - I come from a long line of atheists, and was indoctrinated from an early age :-) )

As far as I recall Stu, you agreed with me in saying that "there's no denying micro-evoluation [sic]", which contradicts "evolution is still unproved" - yes/no/maybe? Maybe our evolution from an ancestor common to apes hasn't been physically witnessed per se, that's true, but then there are genetic records and DNA etc etc. As far as I know, isn't directed evolution one of the theories of Christian Science? I don't think it matters - they strike me as lunatics.

My opinion of the adversarial relationship is that it is unequivocally the fault of the church - convicting scientists and philosophers who contradict the bible, and question the existence of God, as heretics doesn't tend to do much for the relationship between church and science.

Re: God creating Earth - sorry, I did mean life, the universe and everything. I don't believe it, but I should at least be accurate.

The one thing I have found is that an open mind is essential to avoiding stagnation in life.

- Stu

Is that why you are a christian. yeah, really open minded that. You're a fool, but then I have always thought that about you. Sure, science cannot explain it all YET, but that is no reason to invent a pathetic story to help you sleep at night.

I just smile when us religious okes get labled as judgemental...

- Stu

ummm, spot the judgement in the above statement....Stu, once again, let me tell you what an idiot you are.

Is it all ordained by God or simply the result of the laws of the world we live in: a drunk bus driver or faulty wiring.
Anyway, I think all you really need to come around is a good ol bashing over the head with my super-thick bible - I have a special storage compartment for it in my pad

The biggest contradiction is that your religion firstly says that god gives all humans the right to choose, then in another breath says that everything is pre-ordained by 'god'. Secondly, get off your high horse Stu. Why do christians always have to preach. Dude, I'll gladly take 'hell' just not to have to hang out with twats like you when I die! The way I see it, all the cool people will be in hell anyway!

In terms of not seeing and believing in evolution, well, it really doesnt matter anyway you see it. What is, is. So rather than waste many hours of your life crying to your imaginary friends, try living, travelling, interacting with humans. Evolution is all around us.

Gri-Gri, your comment is exactly why you ARE the missing link...there you go guys, evolution explained...I can't believe you were the sperm that won the race.

Not at all, surely there is a difference between micro and macro-evolution?
Dude, Christian Science, Scientology, The Catholic Church, etc. there are a lot of branches of Christianity out there that all have their own beliefs, too many to go into here and some of whom preach a warped version of Christianity, and I agree some of those guys are nuts.
I actually agree, the church (that term is used to encompass everything and is very misleading) has been much too condeming over the years and has attempted to quash debate which has been bad for realtions between the different groups. And if their 'faith' is as strong as they claim should in fact encourage debate.
Anyway I gotta do some work right now.

OK guest I'll bite: you're an idiot.
Where exactly does it say that EVERYTHING is preordained by God?
Can you not see the difference between debate and preaching? Or are you too busy preaching to me?
I thought about responding more comprehensively but again, you're an idiot.
Now I gotta frickin work.

The point, Dom, which I was trying to make, is:
If we all grew up from the sand, formed into apes and eventually stood upright and began speaking somewhat coherently, at which point did we realize, “Hey, you know what, murder, rape, child abuse – that stuff is wrong…”

C’mon Dom, you’ve got a soul don’t you, you feel pain, anger, sadness, joy and happiness? Where did you get all those emotions and feelings from? Out of that swirling mass of helium, hydrogen and a few other gases? I think not. Then again, you’ve also got free will too, so you get to think whatever you like.

guest, do you have any idea how pathetic you are? I'll bet that just about every person who reads this forum rolls their eyes and sniggers when they see your name on a post. I'd be embarrased to open my mouth if I were you.